


opia

by liketogetlost



Category: From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series
Genre: F/M, References to Drugs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-07
Updated: 2015-09-07
Packaged: 2018-04-19 11:34:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4744820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liketogetlost/pseuds/liketogetlost
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Opia - n. the ambiguous intensity of looking someone in the eye, which can feel simultaneously invasive and vulnerable.</p><p>- Short little thing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	opia

There are times when Seth can’t even bring himself to look Kate in the eye.

 

If he’s being honest with himself, he’s always watching her. Even when he’s driving, he has one eye on the road and one eye on Kate. It’s like he’s always hyper-aware of her, in a way he’s only ever been aware of the passing of time.

 

Most days he takes in her blurry figure, looking at her from the side of his gaze. Kate is always there, always by his side (against his side, close to him, warm and soft and blood pounding through her veins he can’t imagine ever being spilled), but there’s a coward that lives inside Seth that makes it hard for him to meet her iris to iris.

 

Once, he has to shoot a man to save her life. It’s not the fact that he shoots at someone that makes him avoid her stare, it’s the fact that he shoots the guy in the leg instead of straight in the heart.

 

Adapt, react, re-adapt. 

 

He’s not a good person. He never has been, he never will be, even on his deathbed they’ll call him a “ _loser piece of garbage criminal should have never been born_ ”, and he’d sign off for it to be written on his headstone, no problem. Because he’d be the first one to agree. He shoots up heroin in front of a preacher’s daughter like she needs to see it. Selfish, like he has to share it with someone. Because his pain is important, somehow more important than hers, and he has to rub her face in it.

 

When he wakes up in the morning, still half-stoned and living in another world, it’s Kate who won’t look at him. Kate, who will practically toss a cup of disgusting motel coffee in his face, liquid burned and almost tasting of rust, and tell him to “wake the fuck up”, like she’s a hardened criminal on the run for years.

 

When in reality she’s pure and perfect, an innocent peach bruised by the way he cut her from her tree too early.

 

He acts pissed. Like how dare she judge him, how dare she even pretend to understand. Gulps the coffee like medicine, throws the cup to the floor and pulls on yesterday’s stained and torn suit like a second skin. “Morning to you, too, princess.”

 

Bites extra venom into that last word just to be an asshole.

 

He’s not pissed, though. He knows he’s not what she chose. Even when Kate Fuller got in the car with Seth Gecko, she wasn’t choosing to ride off into the sunrise with a junkie ladened with a death wish. 

 

The only thing that keeps him from pushing the plunger further, from erasing everything for good is the way she manages to catch his eye when he’s not expecting it.

 

Usually when he’s handing her a gun like a gift, or when she’s throwing money at him from behind a register. There’s always a moment when he has to look at her, when he has to stare into the stark reality of what he’s done. All he ever sees is Kate strapped to a stone altar, Kate pushing a stake into her own father’s beating heart, or Kate, looking at him from the passenger seat for miles before finally looking out the side window because she was with him now. And Seth wasn’t about to own up to anything minutes after the fact, let alone three months later.

 

He wakes up one morning, deep green pulling his dream addled mind back to earth. “Kate, go to your own bed.” He tries to roll over, tries to ignore her and go back to sleep but she yanks at him, jerks him into her world. 

 

“Look at me, goddammit. If we’re going to keep going, I need you to fucking see me.” 

 

There’s something about her speech, the cursing and the choking off of her words, that makes him open his eyes and really see her. See the endless stretch of road and crime that she’s become, the redness around her green and the way she looks at him as if there’s no movie persona he can imitate to trick her. He’s spent his entire life pretending and this is one person he can’t hide from.

 

“Do you hate me?” She sounds so young when she says it, voice small enough to sneak into his heart.

 

“Kate —“

 

“Because sometimes I hate you.” Kate crawls over him, straddles him like a state line and rests her hands on his chest. “Sometimes I look at you and I wonder how you ever managed to become a a part of my life. How you ever managed to become the most important person in my life.”

 

The drug is still lingering in his veins like a ghost and the warmth between her legs is pressed over his crotch. All he can manage to do is rest his hands on her thighs like a white flag. 

 

“And you won’t even look at me.” Kate grips the bottom of her t-shirt, pulling it over her head, and she’s flesh and flesh, porcelain and rosy. 

 

“Jesus-“, Seth starts to sit up, starts to push her off but Kate presses down on his chest and he falls back against the bed. 

 

“God, Seth. Look at me. I can’t go through this alone.” Kate takes his hand, moves his palm up her stomach and he swears out loud.

 

He does, lets himself find her eyes with his own. Find the energy that she’s been putting out all these months and that he’s been pushing away. All he feels is the pull of someone who’s been keeping him alive. Someone who’s been making sure he doesn’t push the plunger all the way, who’s bare soft skin feels like the high he’s been chasing.

 

Kate licks her lips, a motion he follows like a trail, and squeezes his hand. “Tell me to go.” Her voice is still so young, sweet like a fallen angel, strained in her chest. 

 

Seth sits up, running his hand through her hair and pressing his forehead to hers. “All I see when I look at you is fucking reality.”

 

Kate sighs, starts to pull away, and Seth grips her around her waist. “No, I don’t want you to go.” 

Kate kisses the side of his mouth and he wants her to keep going, wants to lick into her mouth and feel her push back. He kisses her cheek and takes her shirt, drapes it over her chest. “I don’t want you to go, but we can’t do this now. You don’t - “ He looks at her and he can tell she’s about to tell him he doesn’t get to decide what she wants, but right now he does. “You don’t want me like this, princess.”

 

“Seth -“

 

“I’m still fucking high right now, Kate. It’s still in me. God, all I want to do is kiss you and make you come. Just touching you,” he runs his hand up her bare back and her skin feels like smooth redemption. “But not now.”

 

Kate kisses him, bites at his lip to punctuate it. “Just don’t hide from me.”

 

He shakes his head, licking over where she bit and thinking about the long road ahead of him, and Kate waiting for him at the end of it. He locks eyes with her and feels that pull from her he always feels. It's almost stronger than his high, something he wants to chase forever. 

 

“I can’t, princess.”

 

He lets himself rest his face in her neck, lips just grazing her skin. He feels stripped and bare, an exposed and open vein but for once it’s okay.


End file.
